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Pre-Turoon History
Sourcing All of history before the birth of Turoon comes almost exclusively from folk tales and word of mouth. As such, all the history before Turoon is unreliable, and "common knowledge" is constantly in flux. On top of that issue, many of the most common stories and legends of the Draconic Era clash directly with archaeological discoveries in their rumored areas of occurrence. Timeline Since there is no written record of the Draconic Era, historians and storytellers are often forced to select an arbitrary point as the "start date of all time." The reality is, no one is quite sure when the dragons gained power, or even when Turoon was born. The conventional date that historians have agreed upon is 1000 B.T. (Before Turoon) as the start of the Draconic Era and 200 B.T. as the birth date of Turoon. The "Staple" Beliefs of the Draconic Era The Black Princess This story is often cited as the birth of the halfling race and they are known to tell it as a source of pride for them. The story goes that the first halfling was born to a human family. The humans all threw her out into the forest, and they never gave her a name for fear she would be bound to them. They left the halfling baby deep in the woods, in a grove of oaks and grape vines. It was there that the halfling would make her home. A herd of elk came by and adopted the baby, teaching her the language of animals and showing her how to gather berries to survive. The baby lived almost entirely off of grapes and berries in the surrounding forest, and as a result she grew large elk antlers. She also developed druidic powers, and she could disappear entirely from sight only to reappear with food and water an hour later. At this point, she learned how to transform into animals, and often felt most comfortable in the form of an elk similar to that of her herd. One day, a human hunting group encountered her herd. They chased them and lay traps along the known elk paths. They were able to shoot the druid halfling until she transformed back into her horned-halfling form. When the humans saw this, they could not believe what they found, and ran away back to the village. The next day, the humans set the whole forest on fire trying to cleanse it of the halfling. The entire elk herd died in the fire, except the halfling. She was left, alone in the pile of the ashes of her loved ones, and she painted her skin black with the rubble. But she was no vengeful fool, she rebuilt the forest piece by piece, at first planting trees, then conjuring animals. Eventually the forest overtook the humans, and they were forced far away, off the island. The forest to this day teems with her light, and still on rare occasions, a siting of the Black Princess is reported, though none are believed. Validity To this day, this story is treated as well within the realm of scientific possibility. The Black Princess' supposed immortality is often called into question, but many reason that she could have been blessed by some great creature that went extinct in the fire proposed by the story. Archaeologists have pinpointed her forest down to a specific island. The Great Reduction This "story" is more of a fact that all uneducated people of the modern world believe. Essentially, they believe that the Dragons cast a great curse on all the people under them. They reduced the mental capacity of all the people of the isles as a way to keep them in servitude. The people who were ancestrally not involved in Turoon's rebellion use this as their reasoning for why they did not participate. They often cite the dragons as being "so concentrated on controlling us that they couldn't keep watch on Turoon." Validity This belief is generally not upheld by the scientific community. Multiple expeditions have turned up ancient technology on par with modern inventions, and some of the "new" technology has been derived from ancient discoveries. One expedition in Ku even turned up advanced magical technology from a time well before any conceived date.